A Quote by David M. Raup

In the beginning, there were bacteria.... [A] nearly universal assumption is that all subsequent life descended from the original life form through a continuous chain of ancestor-descendant pairs. This assumption looks good because all living organisms share biochemical traits. It is conceivable, of course, that life originated more than once on the early earth but that all except one life form died out early, leaving a single lineage as the ancestor of life as we know it. If this did happen, it was the first important species extinction.

David M. Raup

Quote Topics

Ancestor Assumption Bacteria Because Beginning Chain Continuous Course Descendant Did Died Early Earth Except Extinction First Form Good Happen Important In The Beginning Know Leaving Life Lineage Living Living Organisms Looks More Nearly Once Organisms Original Out Pairs Share Single Single Line Species Species Extinction Subsequent Than Through Traits Universal Were

Quote Author

David M. Raup
Scientist
1933 - July 9, 2015

From the scientific view, the theory of karma may be a metaphysical assumption -- but it is no more so than the assumption that all of life is material and originated out of pure chance

Dalai Lama

Evolutionary biologists often appeal to parsimony when they seek to explain why organisms "match" with respect to a given trait. For example, why do almost all the organisms that are alive today on our planet use the same genetic code? If they share a common ancestor, the code could have evolved just once and then been inherited from the most recent common ancestor that present organisms share. On the other hand, if organisms in different species share no common ancestors, the code must have evolved repeatedly.

Elliott Sober

An argument often given for why Earth couldn't host another form of life is that once the life we know became established, it would have eliminated any competition through natural selection. But if another form of life were confined to its own niche, there would be little direct competition with regular life.

Paul Davies

If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

So how can we test the idea that the transition from nonlife to life is simple enough to happen repeatedly? The most obvious and straightforward way is to search for a second form of life on Earth. No planet is more Earth-like than Earth itself, so if the path to life is easy, then life should have started up many times over right here.

Paul Davies

Searching for alternative life on Earth might seem misconceived, because there is excellent evidence that every kind of life so far studied evolved from a common ancestor that lived billions of years ago. Yet most of the life that exists on Earth has never been properly classified.

Paul Davies

I'd bet almost anything that life from another planet, if formed independently from life on Earth, would be more different from all species of Earth life than any two species of Earth life are from each other.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

What we want is another sample of life, which is not on our tree of life at all. All life that we've studied so far on Earth belongs to the same tree. We share genes with mushrooms and oak trees and fish and bacteria that live in volcanic vents and so on that it's all the same life descended from a common origin. What we want is a second tree of life. We want alien life, alien not necessarily in the sense of having come from space, but alien in the sense of belonging to a different tree altogether. That is what we're looking for, "life 2.0."

Paul Davies

The idea that boxing lends itself to cinema so well is because it's usually a morality play - good against evil, insecurity and triumph, fear strikes out, so the audience can really get drawn into the drama of it. Also, it was sensual and very primal. I think subliminaly we do two things - life is a fight, life is a struggle and we understand that from our early, early, early ancestors, and life is a race.

Sylvester Stallone

Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material.

George Gaylord Simpson

Why, then, does water-form the very basis of life in all life's various manifestations? Because water embraces everything is in and all through everything; because it rises above the distinctions between plants and animals and human beings; because it is a universal element shared by all; itself undetermined, yet determining; because, like the primal mother it is, it supplies the stuff of life to everything living.

Theodor Schwenk

Take the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the earth and scale it down to a single year, with January 1 being the origin of the earth and midnight on December 31 being the present. Until June, the only organisms were single-celled microbes, such as algae, bacteria, and amoebae. The first animal with a head did not appear until October. The first human appears on December 31. We, like all the animals and plants that have ever lived, are recent crashers at the party of life on earth.

Neil Shubin

He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material.

George Gaylord Simpson

Painting from life was incredibly important for me because it allowed me to train my eyes to see everything that is there. But I realized early on that painting from life wasn't something that I was all that invested in. I was always more interested in the painting than I was the people. For me, removing that as a compulsion offered me a lot more freedom to actually paint and think about color, form, movement, and light.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

I think we should all live on the precipe of life, as fully and as dangerously as possible. Everyone should make the assumption that they're going through life only once. Tomorrow we die. Why not take chances, extend yourself? How awful it is when a person comes to the end of life full of regret.

Edward Albee

I have always thought that Heaven is a place for people who had had a good life, but that is not true. God is merciful and way too good to make it so. The Heaven is just a place for people who could not be really happy while living on Earth. I was once told that people who commit suicide are taken back on Earth to repeat life from the very beginning because if they did not like it once, it did not mean they would not like it the next time. But those who did not fit in on Earth at all, ended up here. Everyone comes to Heaven in their own way.

Etgar Keret

A Quote by David M. Raup

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors